Free Leading Man by Benjamin Svetkey Page A

Justin and Britney.”
    You’d think the best people to ask about fame would be famous people, but you’d be disappointed. Whenever I interviewed a big star, I snuck in a question about the nature of fame and a celebrity’s place in the universe. I’d usually get blank stares and cricket noises. Some stars pretended to hate fame, even though it was obvious they secretly loved it. A few pretended to love it, even though it was obvious they secretly hated it. But not a lot of celebrities seemed to give fame much serious, philosophical thought. Even the smartest celebs—the ones who put on horn-rimmed glasses and discussed Chechnya on
Charlie Rose
—seemed bored by the subject. To them, it was like the weather. Some days it was nice being famous, other days it was crappy. Either way, they were powerless over it, and therefore not all that interested in it.
    Every once in a while, though, I’d run into a star who surprised me.
    “Here’s the thing about fame,” Alistair Lyon offered as he did a lazy backstroke across the deep end of his kidney-shaped pool. I was kneeling at the edge, holding my microrecorder over the sparkling water, hoping Lyon’s splashing sounds weren’t going to be the only part of the interview I’d be able to hear on the tape. “It doesn’t end world hunger. It doesn’t cure cancer. Fame doesn’t even cure loneliness. It doesn’t make you stronger or protect you from harm or give you any superpowers. It’s just perfume. That’s all it is. It makes you smell nice. It’s the world’s greatest deodorant.”
    Lyon had gained a lot of weight since winning his fourth Academy Award the year before, for playing Adolf Hitler in
The Bunker
, a big-screen remake of the1981 TV movie that earned Anthony Hopkins an Emmy. He was so huge, the waterline actually dipped a notch when he finally hauled himself out of the pool. The fattening up was all part of the fifty-nine-year-old Aussie superstar’s preparation for his next role—he’d be playing Winston Churchill in Ron Howard’s adaptation of William Manchester’s
The Last Lion
. No actor in the last thirty years had brought to life so many great historical figures. Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Attila the Hun, Francis Bacon, Lyndon Johnson, Julius Caesar, Yuri Gagarin, Buffalo Bill, Babe Ruth, Benjamin Disraeli, Leonardo da Vinci, Ernest Hemingway—if he was famous and dead, chances are Lyon had won a statuette for playing him.
    I loved interviewing stars in their homes—you learn so much about celebrities from their tchotchkes. Lyon’s mid-century glass-and-stone mansion in the Hollywood Hills was filled with Eames chairs and Nelson benches and Knoll tables. A vast wraparound balcony off the sunken living room offered a breathtaking panoramic view of the city. Hanging on the walls were more Picas-sos and Pollocks and Warhols than at the Getty. If Lyon weren’t such a world-famous ladies man, I’d swear he was gay—his taste in home decor was
that
good. Attractive young German-accented Aryans of both genders—Lyon must have picked them up while playing Hitler—were fluttering all over, answering phone calls, mixing pitchers of mimosas, and rushing plates of caviar omelets and other snacks from the kitchen to the pool. The overhead costs of being Alistair Lyon had to be staggering. Luckily, he was rich.
    “The trick to living with fame,” Lyon went on as an assistant wrapped his dripping wet body in a towel as big as a mainsail, “is not to take it too seriously. You shouldn’t cling to it. You shouldn’t try to hold fame in your grip. Fame is like money—you’re just borrowing it. Someday you’re going to die, and somebody else is going to get it.” Another assistant arrived with a platter of freshly rolled sushi. Lyon sniffed a piece before popping it into his mouth. “Do you want to be famous, young man?” he asked, giving me a curious stare. “Is that your dream? Is that why you have so many questions about it?”
    No